Evans Wins 2009 Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout

The pre-med student from Ohio State University is now a professional race driver.

Buttonwillow, California— Cup Shootout, the most lucrative prize in American amateur road racing, has been won by Nick Evans, a 19-year-old biology student at Ohio State University who earned an invitation to the annual Shootout by winning the -powered Formula Enterprise class at the 2009 SCCA Runoffs. For his efforts at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California, where he competed against four other Mazda-powered amateur national champions in a series of tests, Evans takes home a full ride in the 2010 SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup, a prize worth in excess of $75,000.

"Wow. After hearing the news I was speechless," said Evans, a soft-spoken driver who was informed he had won the day after the event. "All I could say was thank you! I felt so relieved once I won the Shootout and for the opportunity to begin my professional racing career with Mazda. I put an enormous effort into the Shootout and it paid off. This is really a defining moment in my life."

Skills—both on the track in an MX-5 Cup car and back in the paddock with engineers and media—were tested. They included:

Driving ability – fast laps

Driving ability – consistent laps

Technical feedback – Understanding of vehicle dynamics and suspension

Technical feedback – Ability to evaluate vehicle handling

Technical feedback – Ability to analyze data

Technical feedback – Ability to improve vehicle handling

The business of motorsports – Business proposal

The business of motorsports – Business presentation

The business of motorsports – PR skills

Evans is following in the footsteps of Andrew Caddell, Brad Rampelberg, and Justin Piscitell, the three previous Shootout winners. By winning, he also joins the Motorsports Development Driver ladder program, which has helped the careers of young up and coming racers including Raphael Matos, John Edwards, Conor Daly, Joel Miller, Connor De Phillippi, Dane Cameron, Jason Saini, Todd Lamb, Eric Foss, and Adam Christodoulou.

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Besides Evans, the other participants in the 2009 MX-5 Cup Shootout were Ryan Ellis, of Fairfax, Virginia, a NASA Teen Champion in a Miata; Steven Gorriaran of Providence, Rhode Island, the SCCA Runoffs champ in Spec Miata; Bruce Pendleton of Oakland, California, the NASA PTE champion in a Miata; and Andy Rushing from Austin, Texas, the NASA Spec Miata champion.

All drivers were impressive in their own ways, but Evans, normally a formula car driver, put on an impressively smooth display of speed that could not be ignored. The final scores were close, but in both the objective and subjective ratings, Evans was the top choice, making him not just the newest Mazda professional race driver, but also a definite guy to watch in 2010.